Talking hands
SignTranslate Hospital won the Healthcare ICT Product Innovation category of last year’s BT e-Health Insider Awards, sponsored by Quicksilva. Sandra Hempel finds out more.
Feature
King’s Fund launches primary care inquiry
The King’s Fund has launched an 18-month inquiry into primary care in England that will aim to produce a set of measures to assess the quality of care provided by different GP practices. The King’s Fund said there was “remarkably little information” currently available on the core activities of GPs, such as referral, prescribing and diagnosis, and […]
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NHS launches cancer toolkit
The NHS has formally launched a Cancer Commissioning Toolkit to help local NHS managers to develop better cancer-fighting strategies based on national standards and data. Until recently, data on the effective use of cancer drugs, treatments and waiting times has been held in 15 competing databases and often in paper format. The toolkit is a […]
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Doc ratings site moves into charity work
The controversial website iwantgreatcare, which allows patients to rate their doctors, is expanding into other areas of NHS work, in a move that aligns with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s call for public service users to be able to rate them.
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NHS Brent gets PBC support
The first project under the Department of Health’s practice-based commissioning support framework has begun work. Clinicians and managers in NHS Brent are working with the NHS Alliance, Humana Europe and health information provider Dr Foster Intelligence. The partnership is one of five consortia on the DH’s practice-based commissioning development framework. The framework was set up […]
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DH launches new vision for PBC
Practice-based commissioners are entitled to receive accurate and timely financial and management data and analysis, according to the Department of Health’s newly released vision for practice-based commissioning. The DH says its vision will mark the start of a new drive to see practice-based commissioning working to its full potential. The document, Clinical commissioning: our vision […]
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NPSA Never Events policy welcomed
A company making IT systems to prevent wrong-site surgery has welcomed the launch of a national patient safety policy focusing on eight types of incident that can easily be prevented. Jeremy Turbervill, head of sales for Safe Patient Systems, said it was pleased the National Patient Safety Agency had issued the Never Events policy, which […]
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Information barrier to PBC
Poor quality data and financial information remains a barrier to the successful implementation of practice-based commissioning, according to the National association of Primary Care. The NAPC, whose membership covers GP practices and PCTs, is calling for timely financial and clinical data to be made available to practices. It claims the future of practice-based commissioning is […]
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First day of the PROMs
The Department of Health has issued instructions to the NHS on the action that needs to be taken to deliver Patient Reported Outcome Measures from April. The use of PROMs in the health service was first outlined by Lord Darzi in the NHS Next Stage Review. Now commissioners and service providers have been given detailed […]
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DH and London move on shared services
NHS chief executive David Nicholson is encouraging the health service to make greater use of shared services as London’s primary care trusts prepare to set up their own commissioning support organisation. Nicholson wrote to trust chief executives last week to encourage them to use NHS Shared Business Services or other shared services for back-office functions. […]
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